We owe Bob big.

There's not much I - and my daughter when she's home - won't at least try to tackle before calling for outside help.

We've repaired underground water piping. We've cut down trees. We (and by we, I mean "she") has repaired the garage door several times. We've added steps to the deck, hauled rocks, laid tile. I like to think I/we can handle most any situation that comes along without unduly disturbing friends and neighbors with any girly-girl helplessness.

And we were prepared to handle the snake.

And by prepared, I mean I had a hoe in one hand and a shovel in the other, prepared to chop to the death if necessary. My daughter said I looked like one torch short of a villager.

As I steeled myself for the unpleasant task, she, smarter than I am and acknowledging discretion as the better part of valor, headed across the street and brought back Bob, our neighbor of more than 20 years. While I had practically donned armor to gingerly poke around looking for the little beast, Bob casually walked over with bare feet and walked right up to the spot it had retreated to.

He relieved my biggest concern when he identified it as a bull snake and not a rattlesnake (a leftover phobia from living in Pierre, S.D., for a number of years, where they'd show up in yards in a dry summer).

Bob grabbed a hoe and picked up the critter. He inquired as to whether I wanted it killed.

Well, no. There's no reason to pointlessly kill something for no better reason than it gives me the willies. But if we want to just remove it to a distance, we would need a container, Bob said.

I had plenty of ice cream pails, but - naturally - no lids. I was getting ready to make the ultimate sacrifice and pull out my large Tupperware bowl when I remembered a basket that I had taken out to the garage.

By chance, it looked a bit like a snake charmer's basket and it actually had a lid with a latch.

By this time, the snake had wriggled off the hoe head, so Bob picked it up by the tip of the tail and dropped it in the basket and flipped shut the lid. With the hoe, I pushed the clasp closed.

Well, Bob suggested, my daughter and I could take it out into the country and drop it off. Daughter and I looked at each other, the same mental picture forming: We're driving along in my SUV with a snake in a basket. Is there a microscopic hole in the basket through which a determined snake could escape? How big a multi-vehicle accident would we cause if it got loose in the vehicle with us? We checked the bottom of the basket. All seemed secure.

Nevertheless.

Bob saw our hesitation and took pity. Would you like me to take it away for you? he asked. Swallowing hard, I came face-to-face with my go-it-alone philosophy and admitted my limitations. That would be wonderful, I said. So Bob got in his vehicle and drove the snake out to its new home and eventually came back with the basket.

Meanwhile, daughter and I were engaged in a furious, whispered conversation about how to reward Bob for the snake-removal services. We knew no reward was high enough but ultimately decided a package of our favorite buffalo sausage would be at least a token. She peeled out and was back with it by the time he returned.

It was an odd thank-you, but he was gracious about it.

Bless you, good neighbor.

(Reach reporter Karen Herzog at 250-8267 or karen.herzog@bismarcktribune.com)